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Original poster

Anyone know about synaesthesia?

110 replies

FrannyandZooey · 07/07/2006 12:27

I know there are a few synaesthetes on here - I wondered if anyone could point me in the direction of a good book or other materials to learn more about the subject. I was told yesterday that our brains all work synaesthetically up to the age of about 4 months, but I need a reference for this piece of information, and am interested in learning more about it in general.

Thanks in advance if you can help.

OP posts:
Original poster
FrannyandZooey · 07/07/2006 21:57
OP posts:
Pruni · 07/07/2006 22:01

Message withdrawn

SoMuchToBits · 07/07/2006 22:06

Mmmm...love prunes actually!

Incidentally an orange is black and a lemon is green, and an apple is blue.

hunkermunker · 07/07/2006 22:46

I see colours more brightly with my right eye than my left and do the melon thing and words are...unique to me. Not 100% sure they're colours, more sensations, but maybe colourful sensations, iyswim? Or emotions? I shall have to think about it more.

I think it might be why I found naming the boys so hard. Some names just felt too prickly. Others slimy.

(ALL my lunacies are going to be apparent on this thread I think... )

SoMuchToBits · 07/07/2006 22:48

I think its normal for people to see colours sightly differently with each eye.

Know what you mean about choosing names, I couldn't have chosen one if I didn't like the colour of it. And the first name and middle name had to go together colourwise as well.

Original poster
FrannyandZooey · 08/07/2006 07:48
OP posts:
kitbit · 08/07/2006 08:24

I also have colours for numbers and letters, days, months and sometimes years althugh only the ones I-ve lived, maybe something to do with life experiences at the time! Spoke to my mum about it a while ago when she brought the subject up, until then I didn't realise it wasn't the same for everyone. I also see colours for people, but having spoken to sevreal psychics at various times the colours I have are more like my own impressions of them and are nothing to do with their auras (which would have been really interesting and useful!) Mum said my grandmother was the same, and she and I apparently are quite similar (she died long before I was born) and have many of the same skills and preferences.

When I was pg ds felt as though he was a very rich mid/toned blue, so I really wanted to find a name the same colour, and luckily the name we both really liked was exactly right.

I also seem to use it as a memory aid - places and directions have colours too, and I sometimes remember people's names and faces by the colours and whether or not the colour of their name matches their own colour. Quite handy really.

Weird isn't it but kind of cool! Love the thread

SoMuchToBits · 08/07/2006 09:06

I know what you mean about the person not matching their colour. If I see someone for example with auburn hair, I always think they should have a brown or orange type name, and if they have, say, a blue one, it just doesn't seem to match up. Its great to be able to talk here with other people who have synaesthesia - apart from my sister I've never met anyone else in RL who has it.

Miaou · 08/07/2006 09:10

Franny I'm not, but my dd1 and my mum are. I'll see if I can find the thread (it doesn't help that I asked "are you kinesthetic iirc) - might have been in chat though

Original poster
FrannyandZooey · 08/07/2006 09:14

Sorry I have completely failed to remember anything correctly from the previous threads

my memory notoriously bad

OP posts:
SoMuchToBits · 08/07/2006 09:16

I haven't read the previous threads, as I am realtively new (have only joined MN two weeks ago). Can anyone do a link, as I would be interested to read them?

Original poster
FrannyandZooey · 08/07/2006 09:25

Search is a bit challenging these days, Somuch. I'm not coming up with anything, but Miaou might remember the thread better than me (since she was actually on it and I'm pretty sure I was just a lurky lurker then)

OP posts:
Blandmum · 08/07/2006 09:37

an interesting expereiment to see if you are a synesthete (may not work for all synesthests unless you change what is tested IYSWIM')
'Read a list of random numbers between 0 and 9 at a rate of about one every 3 seconds. For example: 7, 9, 4, 0, 3, 8, 2, 5, 1, 6.

After each number is read, ask people to write down the number and what COLOR that they associate with each number.

Collect the answers. These will be called "Answers #1".

Two to three weeks later, repeat the experiment, but change the order of the numbers. For example: 3, 6, 5, 9, 4, 1, 7, 0, 5, 2, 8.

Collect the answers. These will be called "Answers #2".

Compare Answers #1 with Answers #2. A person with synesthesia will have all or most of the same number-color pairs on both Answers #1 and Answers #2.
This experiment can also be done using letters instead of numbers. '

Miaou · 08/07/2006 11:54

found it!!!

PLEASE ignore the thread title though - I got the word wrong - eejit

Miaou · 08/07/2006 11:56

MB, we did this with dd1 (but she sees it with days of the week, not numbers), and sure enough she comes up with the same colours every time

Miaou · 08/07/2006 12:07

hunkermunker, I have to ask, are my kids' names prickly and/or slimy?? (I won't be offended, I promise )

what if your dh's name is slimy!

Original poster
FrannyandZooey · 08/07/2006 12:45

I am sure there was another thread though Miaou, I remember one where people were comparing the days of the week's colours as on this one.

OP posts:
zippitippitoes · 08/07/2006 13:19

there was another one but I can't find it..it must have been in chat i think or the new search is just too hard to use (for me at any rate)

that's the trouble with starting interesting threads in chat

SoMuchToBits · 08/07/2006 14:38

Thanks, miaou, I have read it now. I would easily pass the synaesthesia test you describe, martianbishop, as the colours are really ingrained, and couldn't possibly be anything else.

Blandmum · 08/07/2006 15:03

It wasn't that I was imuning anyones synesthetic ability

I just felt it would be fun for people who don't know if they are synesthetes or not

Saker · 08/07/2006 16:52

There is a test for synaesthesia on the Horizon website I think. Horizon did a good program about it a while back.

Rosieglow · 09/07/2006 21:04

This is soooo fascinating. All you MNers that see days as colours - can you remember when you first started making the colour associations? Was it when you started learning the written words for the days or were they already fixed from hearing the days said? Difficult to remember, I guess.

It's just from everyone's descriptions it seems to be quite a visual process and I'm wondering how that manifests when you don't know how words are spelled.

& what if you're bilingual and days were different colours in each language - would that be really mindblowing?

PrettyCandles · 09/07/2006 21:27

This thread set me wondering (I mention way down that I'm sure that I was synaesthetic in childhood, but that it faded as I grew older)...English is not my mother tongue, though it's the language I use best, and I learned several other languages in my youth, all with roman alphabets. I had no difficulty learning to write them, yet I did not manage to learn to write in my mother tongue until my 20s, by which time virtually all of my synaesthesia had gone. My mother tongue has a totally different alphabet, and the letters had absolutely no colour-associations for me, it was completely 2-dimensional and lacked all depth, unlike the roman alphabet. I wonder whether the lack of colour and depth was what made it so difficult for me to learn to write?

Ellbell · 09/07/2006 21:42

I heard something about this on Radio 4's 'All in the Mind', either this week or last. Might be worth checking out the website so see if it's still on 'listen again'. It was on there that they said that they believed all children were synaesthetic up to the age of 4 months and that some 'grew out of it' more slowly than others (or not at all).

I got excited thinking that dd2 was synaesthetic because she informed me that Tuesday was pink. It turned out that in her nursery they had the days of the week printed in different colours to help the kids identify the right one. Oh well....

Interesting about smells and tastes. My grandfather's (largely unused) sitting room always tasted of pear drops to me - I got the taste very strongly as soon as I went in there, and I am pretty sure that he never fed me pear drops in there, so I don't think it's just a memory thing. I'm not synaesthetic, but I had a student who was and who claimed that it helped her a lot with learnign a foreign language as she could learn vocabulary through colour associations.

I don't think Proust's madeleine is synaesthetic, though; in that case I do think it's to do with memory triggers.

All very very interesting.

Ellbell · 09/07/2006 21:44

I heard something about this on Radio 4's 'All in the Mind', either this week or last. Might be worth checking out the website so see if it's still on 'listen again'. It was on there that they said that they believed all children were synaesthetic up to the age of 4 months and that some 'grew out of it' more slowly than others (or not at all).

I got excited thinking that dd2 was synaesthetic because she informed me that Tuesday was pink. It turned out that in her nursery they had the days of the week printed in different colours to help the kids identify the right one. Oh well....

Interesting about smells and tastes. My grandfather's (largely unused) sitting room always tasted of pear drops to me - I got the taste very strongly as soon as I went in there, and I am pretty sure that he never fed me pear drops in there, so I don't think it's just a memory thing. I'm not synaesthetic, but I had a student who was and who claimed that it helped her a lot with learnign a foreign language as she could learn vocabulary through colour associations.

I don't think Proust's madeleine is synaesthetic, though; in that case I do think it's to do with memory triggers.

All very very interesting.